Summary
You have an Ubuntu system and you wish to try Sugar?
As of 2012-02, Ubuntu does not have a stable version of Sugar in the Ubuntu repositories. Until this is fixed, your choices are:
- use Sweets on Ubuntu, (recommended for Ubuntu 11.04),
- use a virtual appliance, (compatible with any version of Ubuntu),
- use the unstable version 0.90 of Sugar, from the Ubuntu repositories, (compatible with any version of Ubuntu),
- install from Sugar source.
How to install Sweets on Ubuntu
This is explained in a section of the Sweets distribution page:
How to install a virtual appliance
This is explained in a section of the Sugar Creation Kit page:
How to install Sugar 0.90 on Ubuntu 11.10
- click on Ubuntu Software Centre,
- search for Sugar,
- click on sugar-emulator-0.90,
- click on Install,
Sugar will be downloaded and installed.
To start Sugar, click on Dash, then search for Sugar.
How to install Sugar 0.90 on Ubuntu 11.04
- click on Applications, then Ubuntu Software Centre,
- search for Sugar,
- click on Install,
Sugar will be downloaded and installed.
To start Sugar, click on Applications, then Education, then Sugar.
Using Sugar 0.90 on Ubuntu
A "Choose password for new keyring" dialog may appear. This can be cancelled.
Only the Pippy and TurtleArt activities are included.
You can download more activities from Ubuntu. Click on System, then Administration, then Synaptic Package Manager. The packages names all start with sugar- and end with -activity. For example sugar-terminal-activity.
You can download more Activities from activites.sugarlabs.org from outside of Sugar and install each .xo bundle individually in a terminal with:
sugar-install-bundle activity.xo
Activities that you install in a Sugar Terminal activity are automatically made favourites and will appear in the home view.
Activities that you install in GNOME Terminal are not automatically made favourites, and so do not appear in the home view. Use the List View to mark them as favourites.
Browse can be installed, but does not work, because the Sugar Platform is incomplete on this version of Ubuntu; it is missing hulahop.
Full Screen
By default, Sugar on Ubuntu is run in a window. To run Sugar fullscreen:
- Go to the menu Applications -> Education -> Sugar,
- Drag and drop the Sugar icon to the desktop,
- Right-click on Sugar icon and choose Properties,
- Change the command to:
/usr/bin/sugar-emulator -f
- Use the desktop icon instead of the menu to start Sugar.
Screensaver and Power Management
If you need to turn off screensaver and power management:
xset s off xset -dpms